Culture shock
According to the old adage, travel broadens the mind. The mechanisms for this mind-broadening lie in the combination of the fact that we are all deeply cultural beings and that living in a strange land will grab you by the back of your neck and shake you out of everything you’ve ever imagined yourself to be.
You might have heard of culture shock before, but perhaps you hadn’t realized that it was a psychological phenomenon. Like grieving, which consists of multiple phases (denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance), culture shock is a fairly well-defined process of adapting to your new cultural landscape.
The honeymoon
A new country is a new state of mind, and if you are naturally curious you will always be drawn to the exotic “other side”. The honeymoon phase is a fantastic wild ride of new impressions and ideas. You are in a constant state of suspended disbelief, wonder and beautiful ignorance, during which the newness of the world asserts itself with a fresh and different vigour.
Dreamy Denmark - land of greener pastures
Although this is typically a short-lived phase, your inability to understand the language perfectly for a year or two will essentially also blind you to many of the country’s hidden and harsher realities. The language might seem like a magical shroud that conceals a yet-to-be-discovered world of wonder, but the deeper you navigate into its stark wilderness, the more eerily familiar and mundane your new surroundings will become. You will find that the Danes use their otherworldly and impenetrable language to talk about the exact same everyday things as the people in the village of your disconsolate youth that you’ve so fervently spurned in your search for new pastures.
Negotiation
Within a matter of weeks the annoyances begin to creep up on you. People are not doing things the way you are used to. The little idiosyncrasies and differences used to be charming, but now they’re getting on your nerves. You feel disorientated, confused, angry, out of your depth. Why do they have to be so damn rigid about everything? Why does the language have to be so damn hard? Illogical and abstract as it may sound, you will blame every Dane you meet for their crazy language.
You will always find something to complain about, even after having lived in Denmark for years, and this phase is when much of it will begin to dawn on you.
You might at this point feel a certain calling. A great power has summoned you to be its emissary of truth, to convert the Danes from their evil ways. I’ll spare you a lot of trouble: The Danes don’t want to hear it. They don’t care. They’ve heard it all before.
The same goes for whatever ministry of foreigner affairs that you feel has treated you unfairly and whose outrageous injustices and inhumane policies should immediately be made international knowledge. Unless you plan on becoming a Danish politician in the near future and fighting the system from the inside (as politicians do), it is probably best to concentrate your energies on more pressing exigencies, like getting a job and learning Danish.
It is a good idea to find some other newly-arrived foreigners in Denmark. Establish a network. Your early networks will be strongest and will last for many years to come. You can get together and complain to each other all you like. Write a blog about your feelings, experiences and grievances and put it out there for all and sundry to read (but be sure to shroud it all in a thin veil of wry humour).
Acceptance
So, your crusade to change your host country to suit your needs hasn’t delivered the expected results. Welcome to Denmark! It will take a while, but much of it will begin to make sense, and the amalgamation of your previous and new world views will be an improvement over your old self.
Of course, not everyone manages to integrate equally well. Many sustain a lifelong trauma from culture shock, which not even re-immersion into the native culture can relieve.
Going home
In fact, re-immersion into your native culture is a bit of a cold comfort. At some point during your inner turmoils and tribulations you realize that “home” is a very fluid concept. You realize it most acutely when you go back home after a number of years in Denmark and discover how much of the Danish culture you’ve internalized. This is popularly known as “reverse culture shock”. The red pill has taken you deeper down the rabbit hole than you’d expected or ever imagined. Maybe a bit too deep, because now you emerged on the other side of the world, and everything is upside-down.
During my first visit to my beloved homeland after a few years’ absence, I became very annoyed with the everyday inefficiencies and random breakdowns in simple logic. Why don’t they have that separator thing in supermarkets, like the Danes have, that separate your groceries from other people’s on the checkout counter? Why do people queue in the post office when they can just take a number and wait wherever they like?
Being back home was nowhere near as exuberant and blissful an experience as I’d spent so many years making myself believe it would be. It was downright ordinary. My old friends had steadily been going on with their own lives, and were mostly too busy doing their own thing to be curious about what life in Denmark was like. Where is Denmark anyway? It gets cold there, doesn’t it? Have I ever seen a polar bear?
Ahh balls. The Danes who get upset when Denmark is criticised say
“Either: shut up, do something about it or leave.”
If you’re saying there is not “do something about it” then there really is no way of staying here, is there?
Mark,
Thanks for your commentary. Many of the things you describe in this article I too have experienced while I lived in Denmark. I really could relate to your comments on “reverse culture shock” upon returning to the United States after 8+ years. I felt for the longest time that I was on an extended vacation and soon I would be able to return “home” to Denmark. I still miss many things about my other home and believe that I will always hold Denmark and its people in high esteem. I feel as if I too am a Dane in many ways and will remain so, regardless if I ever have the opportunity to live there again or not! : )
– Jules